


He Would Have Loved Storybrooke

by Shatterpath



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-02
Updated: 2012-10-02
Packaged: 2017-11-15 11:26:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/526779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shatterpath/pseuds/Shatterpath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regina wondering... what if?</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Would Have Loved Storybrooke

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my bingo prompt of Regina/Daniel: Storybrooke.
> 
> I have to confess that I really fought with this one. Stopped and started it several times before it finally came out in fits and starts. that said, I like how it came out.
> 
> Established Regina/Emma relationship.
> 
> Oh, and written BEFORE the second season, so some events will not jive.

I agreed to this because it was worth it.

Yes, I hate it, but that does not change the fact that I volunteered and would do it again in a heartbeat. They are so worth it.

My mansion has become my prison. Fitting, I know. The trappings of wealth and power have become a more effective trap. There are no bars, no alarms, no guard dogs at my gate. Well, not obvious ones anyway. Only my word and my awakened heart keep me here. It's the dwarves that watch me the most closely, now-familiar vehicles driving slowly past, like wolves circling a campfire. Well, Snow's baker's half-dozen of lackeys anyway. It's not so bad when my loved ones are here, but the hours are slow and tedious without them.

Better than the lynch mob I deserved.

They had rallied, all these denizens of our lost world that I had marooned here in my blind rage and pain. Hundreds and hundreds of lives, all of their souls understandably enraged and all of them held at bay by one fierce woman with a sword. 

Looking back now, most of that day is a blur, the riot of familiar purple smoke telling me that somehow, impossibly, magic was back in my grasp. The surge of lusty power had made me smile like some sort of movie villain, before reality had asserted itself. That was not who I am anymore. Not then, not now. Rumpelstiltskin can be evil enough for the both of us, thank you. I hope Belle can do for him what Emma has done for me, battering down the walls of pain and isolation to warm the atrophied heart within. 

"You want her? You'll have to go through me."

The words still ring in my memories, make tears gather at the corners of my eyes. I don't deserve her. I've never deserved her.

"I know what she did was wrong. But I love her. And she is still my son's mother."

through her, I have a second chance at life, a second chance at love, a second chance to do things right.

"Yes, she has to be punished. I'm not arguing that. But we're not the kind of people to string someone up or tar and feather them, or whatever is running through your minds. We will be civilized about this."

While I don't care for those manipulative fairies being able to monitor me so closely, it's only fair. No one else can track my magic use. And once tempers cooled, the mob realized that I may be the only thing keeping Rumpel from their doorsteps. 

Ironic.

There have been exploratory stabs at us, but nothing decisive. All I can do is maintain a basic vigilance and live my life. Such as it is.

Yes, Daniel would have loved this simple, quiet town, even with my grabbing and grasping at power. I would have never become that person had I not lost him in the first place. The dizzy circles my mind races in makes me need to sit, to snuffle slow tears into the throw pillow I find myself clutching.

Yes, Daniel would have loved this town.

But, as my unorthodox little family arrives home in a noisy flurry to kiss and hug away my tears, I have to admit that this is just as good.


End file.
